


Bright as Wind

by Veneredirimmel (Smilla)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Having sex when inebriated, this went in an unexpected porny direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-15 00:13:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18487315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smilla/pseuds/Veneredirimmel
Summary: Ada looked at home and unbothered in Jessie's poorly-lit kitchen, her presence so strong it felt to Jessie as if she had taken over her entire home, like she belonged in dark, and damp rooms, and not in whatever posh hotel or premises she resided in.





	Bright as Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [convenience](https://archiveofourown.org/users/convenience/gifts).



They ended at Jessie’s apartment, both almost drunk, both heavy with the rain that had started to fall not long after they left the pub that had almost refused to serve drinks to them. Ada insisted she walk her home, got Jessie there safe, she’d said, safer than if she walked alone, she amended with a conceding smile, and Jessie was too inebriated to _say fuck off, I don’t need you, I don’t need a Shelby for protection, don’t need a Shelby for drinking either_.

Even though, both would have been lies, or at the very least partial truths.

Once there, it’d felt natural to invite Ada inside for a dark ale, because despite it all, and once the subject had moved on from union affairs and her stubborn brother, Ada was a brilliant conversationalist and Jessie was strangely unwilling to put an end to the night. Ada had accepted with the mischievous smile of the inebriated.

Inside, Jessie busied herself with lighting the fire in the fireplace, Ada was already sitting comfortable at the kitchen table. She’d already lost her rain-damp coat and loosened the collar of her silky blouse, her hair dark with rain and curled at the tips, and all of this Jessie noticed out of the corner of her eyes, while she knelt and blew hair at the flame under the wood, and why she noticed it, she didn’t want to investigate, but it made her feel on edge, itchy and restless. She was the enemy, like Thomas Shelby was the enemy. His emissary, his right hand, and most importantly, his sister, in a family where blood - and Jessie knew this to be a fact - was the strongest binding bond. She shouldn’t be lounging at Jessie’s table, smiling as wide as she was, and Jessie shouldn’t be smiling back.

Ada looked at home and unbothered in Jessie’s poorly-lit kitchen, her presence so strong it felt to Jessie as if she had taken over her entire home, like she belonged in dark, and dingy rooms where time was marked by the noise from the factories, and not in whatever posh hotel or premises she resided in. 

And maybe she did. Jessie had done her research on the Shelby family, knew how poor they had been way back then, before the war. Kitty Jurossi’s sister had been a great source of information and some of the stories she’d told had been brutal. _Starving poor,_ she’d said, _Tommy was so skinny Kitty used to steal food from the pantry to feed him when they met._

When the fire seemed to be going strong, Jessie stood up from her crouched position, and the room spun a bit at the change in altitude and she had to grab the back of a chair to maintain her bearing. Ada laughed, rich and deep. It was hard imagining this sophisticated woman who travelled back and forth from America having ever been a starving child.

“You promised ale,” she said. Words perfectly formed around red lipstick.

Jessie suddenly wanted to smear it on her cheek, imagined her thumb rubbing those soft lips and smudge the red all over her smile, get a breezy open laugh in return.

“That I did,” she said instead, and because she was too frustrated with her own uncalled for thoughts, she added, “How long since you had one, miss Shelby? You sure you’ll like it?”

Jessie had egged Ada’s brother on in the same way with the open intent to needle him, shame him, and it felt pettily good to do the same to Ada. But, like her brother, Ada ignored the barb, and the only overt sign that Jessie had hit some sore spot was a tightening around her eyes. Her smile didn’t fall.

“Bet I can out drink you, ten to one,” Ada said. 

Jessie laughed, in spite of herself, out of control and loose. “Odds look good then for when I beat you. I’m going to be a rich woman when this night ends.”

She uncapped two bottles, offered one, drank herself too fast and too much all at once, refusing to stop until Ada did, coming up for air only a second after she did, half the bottle already empty in her hand while the room tilted dangerously sideways. It wasn’t fair, because she was standing while Ada was sitting comfortably and her body was wedged firmly between chair and table, but Jessie would have ended on her backside if Ada hadn't grabbed her arm to steady her.

It was warm, her hand. Long fingers strong, perfectly manicured nails, as red as her lips, and Jessie was suddenly so angry for losing control in front of a Shelby, didn’t matter which one because all of them were dangerous and untrustworthy. Angry. For being unable to gather her own thoughts from the scattered directions they insisted on going, never settling on something concrete, but always staying on Ada’s perfect designed lips. Ada’s eyes, blue like her brother’s; nowhere near as ice-cold and dead but carrying a warmth Jessie wanted to explore. For the way she liked that Ada wasn’t letting go of her arm, for how much the danger of her own thoughts was emboldening and dizzying.

Slowly, so slowly, Jessie’s smudged the lipstick all over Ada’s mouth with her thumb, brain catching up with her actions too late, but she liked how all that red looked like a smear of blood on Ada’s cheek, like a mark she'd left there. Instead of drawing back, Ada leaned into Jesse’s hand and the surprise of it was electric, a tingle of pleasure shooting all over Jessie's body. _Lost_ , she thought, _she could be so lost_. Jessie bent down and kissed Ada, chaste at first, then sloppy and wet when Ada opened her mouth, hearing nothing for long minutes but the ringing inside her ears for the fast rush of blood to her head. 

And then rage took over, unbidden and wild, and Jessie disentangled herself from whatever enchantment Ada had laid on her. She stood back, put space between them, closed her legs over the wetness she felt dampening her panties. She stepped back to the edge of the fireplace to keep upright. The part of Jessie that was irrational thought that maybe Ada had put a spell on her; dark magic, gypsy secret love potions to weaken her will, and that made her hate Ada more, all the bloody Shelbies, because Jessie was an intelligent woman, rational and logical and smart enough not to believe in bloody magic or absurd tales born out of prejudice.

“Jessie?” Ada’s voice was confused, and that made Jessie even more furious, even if she’d been the one who initiated the kiss. How dared Ada Shelby, who wielded her brother’s power like a loaded gun, look at her lost and hurt.

“You said you don’t believe anymore that people deserve justice. Why are you here?” She spat the words with enough ice in them to erase the lingering taste of Ada’s lips from her own, to wipe away the entire disastrous night and her own mistakes. This hadn’t been her plan.

When she met Ada’s eyes, the warmth in them was gone, while her posture had gone back into that ramrod-straight look of arrogance she’d used on the bartender a few hours before. Jessie would have been glad to deal with that well-threaded territory if she didn’t feel an annoying pang of guilt. Arrogance she knew how to disarm, so she focused on that.

“Do you deserve justice, Jessie?” Ada asked.

The answer was rote even to her own ears, but Jessie said the words anyway, finding refuge in the familiarity of them. “Everybody deserves justice, Ms Shelby. My brothers and sisters--”

“Even Tommy? Does he deserve justice?” She stood, all of the sudden, a step and she was trapping Jessie between her body and the wall. Fire in front and back, sweat gathered under Jessie’s armpit. She needed air. But Ada didn’t let her move, and Jessie didn’t want to lose more ground, either physically or otherwise by getting out of the challenge she could read on Ada’s eyes.

"Do I? Would these brothers and sisters of yours raise a hand for a mother that steals to feed their children?”

“No one would have to steal if real equality is achieved.” 

“Real equality.” Ada scoffed, a guttural, painful sound Jessie could sense the vibration of against her own body, they were so close. “We spent months in an underground, mouldy one-room shit-hole while my husband gathered money for your precious cause and got sick, no money to spare for him, for us. They used him, like they used my brother, like they used my whole family. It doesn’t matter who the culprit is. They’d kill us all if they could. Wipe every trace of our existence from the face of earth, if they could.”

"Even you, Jessie,” she continued and didn’t give Jessie time to protest, to correct. “You’d put me against a wall yourself if they ordered you to, and you'd sleep well at night for it.” 

A pause, like she was considering something profound and intense. Ada had said she envied Jessie’s ability to talk in public, but now Jessie’s mouth was too dry and all the words she needed to say, all the words she wanted to say, were toppling one over the other and she couldn’t make them behave. Ada was wrong; she would care, for her more than from Thomas for sure, but there were things that were more important than anything else and for those she _had_ to care more.

“Would you fight for it, Jessie? Even for this?”

Ada initiated the kiss this time and it was asserting and hard and there was no trace of the tenderness or the tentativeness from before. Jessie got a bit lost in the anger it carried, in the refreshing truth of it. She was the one who reached under Ada’s gown, though, past the garter to the skin of Ada’s thighs, to the loose underwear and between her legs. Jessie put two fingers inside her and Ada was as wet as Jessie was, now panting as hard and as loud as Jessie was inside their kiss. Jessie fucked into her and rubbed her and loved how Ada moaned and pulsed and came so fast under Jessie’s control. 

Jessie didn’t have time to revel in her small victory: suddenly Ada was on her knees. She undid Jessie’s skirt with ease and Jessie didn’t even think of stopping her, she could only hang on, back arched against the hard wall, arms useless at her sides. She wanted Ada's touch on her overheated skin, loved the feel of her tongue and her teeth when Ada bit the inside of her thigh and thrust three fingers inside her. Jessie pushed against them, against Ada’s thumb on her clit, so swollen and ready she was already on the edge and then she tipped over - and it’d been so long, _so long_ , each one of her muscles seized with the force of her orgasm.

Silence hung between them for a while, Ada’s head bent so that Jessie couldn’t see her face, didn’t want to see it for fear of what she’d find or what Ada would see that Jessie wasn't managing yet to hide. Slowly, Ada stood, straightened her clothes, her damp hair. Her face was flushed red and Jessie was glad to find a mirror to the fire simmering under her own skin. 

With a practiced, elegant movement Ada put her coat on, gathered her purse and straightened her hair, her clothes. Jessie stood there, staring somewhere between Ada and the door, avoiding eye contact, her body turned liquid and loose. She wanted a drink, no matter that alcohol had been the cause of this terrible, terrible mishap she knew would hit her in full force soon as the haze passed. It would hit her, as soon as this weird detachment left. Cowardly, she wanted to delay that moment as much as possible. She’d decide how to salvage her position tomorrow. Too much was at stake, to let what happened ruin everything.

Finally, Ada was ready, hat in hand, lingering at the door and Jessie met her eyes and was surprised to find warmth in there, no hint of regret or scorn, nor arrogant satisfaction. She wasn’t smiling, either, and her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but then she shook her head around a small smile. 

“Thank you for the drink, Ms Eden,” she said instead with exaggerated politeness and a hint of playfulness that had the uncanny power of draining the tension out of the room and from Jessie's whole body.

Jessie couldn’t avoid offering back a small smile of her own. “Thank you for the company,” she said.

Door already open, Ada turned around, looked Jessie from head to toe like she was liking what she saw. 

“I look forward to discussing business with you in the future. I’m sure we will have the occasion and the pretext.” Her accent was clipped, words enunciated clearly, a hint of accent unfamiliar to Jessie that had to come from having lived so long in America.

Jessie said nothing to the challenge in that goodbye, to the implied promise of it. She stared as Ada went out, stared at the same spot she'd vacated as the door closed with a muted click. 

Thought Ada was going to be a complication and one that had the power to make her carefully laid plans crumble into dust. _Dangerous._ She found that she didn’t really care.

\--

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very intrigued by the relationship between Ada and Jessie in the show, so thank you for offering me the chance to explore it in fic format.
> 
> I really hope it is to your taste. 
> 
> ♥
> 
> Comments, cheers, and edits by [Deadendtracks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/deadendtracks).
> 
> All the mistakes are mine.


End file.
